From wikipedia:

"Seymour Papert defined constructionism in a proposal to the National Science Foundation entitled Constructionism: A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education as follows: The word constructionism is a mnemonic for two aspects of the theory of science education underlying this project. From constructivist theories of psychology we take a view of learning as a reconstruction rather than as a transmission of knowledge. Then we extend the idea of manipulative materials to the idea that learning is most effective when part of an activity the learner experiences as constructing a meaningful product."

We believe Phun can be classified as a constructionists learning tool, just like, for example, the Logo programming language, and the Lego Mindstorms Robotics construction system. Phun is very much learning by doing, and through constructionism Phun users experience the relevance of basic concepts such as, time, space, conservation of energy and momentum, friction, restitution, viscosity, air resistance, fluid flow, incompressibility (or rather the opposite..), mechanisms and constraints.

References

• Wikipedia on constructionists learning:
• Lego Mindstorms
• Logo programming language